A Four-Day Motorcycle Tour of Wales

The first day is mostly motorway — the price of getting somewhere worth being. We set off separately, one of us from Hertfordshire and the other from Essex, met up and pointed west, the scenery improving by the mile once we crossed into Wales. By mid-afternoon we were into the Elan Valley, and the riding changed character completely: empty single-track roads, Victorian waterworks, old mine workings, and dams holding back half a county of water.

The photo at the top is the pay-off — both bikes parked up with a dam spilling behind them and not another soul around. We spent well over an hour working through the valley and taking in the views, stopped off at Devil's Bridge, then rode straight to the caravan — our accommodation for the weekend, on the coast at Aberystwyth. Sat bang in the middle of the west coast, it turned out to be a brilliant spot for this kind of trip: north, mid and south Wales all within a day's ride. We planned the next day over dinner. A gentle start — it didn't stay that way.

Saturday was the one we'd circled. North toward Snowdonia (Eryri), where the roads stop being a way of getting somewhere and start being the reason you turned up. Long, sighted sweepers opening onto mountain passes; tighter, technical stuff threading between the lakes. If you only had one day to ride a motorcycle in Wales, you could do a lot worse than this corner of the north.

We finished the day's miles on the A483, where we really opened the bikes up and let them do what they each do best, then rolled onto the A470 for a chilled run as the sun went down. Two completely different machines, both of us grinning by the end of it.

Sunday we pointed south, and first up was Llyn Brianne — a reservoir tucked deep in the Cambrian Mountains, reached by miles of empty, brilliant road. We spent ages working our way through, stopping constantly to take in the views, before the road eventually brought us out onto the A40 — which we took to pick up the A470.

From there we dropped into the Brecon Beacons (Bannau Brycheiniog), where @motorphotowales caught us on the move — the riding shots here are all his.

Then on to the Black Mountain — the A4069 pass — where we accidentally stumbled straight into the Dragon Ride, with over 5,000 cyclists out on the same roads. We had a steady stream of kamikaze cars overtaking blind on the corners to get past the groups of cyclists — not somewhere you want to be on a motorbike. Our advice: if the Dragon Ride's on, try to avoid any route it's using — or just don't go that day.

From the mountains we ran straight to the coast and finished the day on the seafront, watching the sun set and chatting away — between ourselves and with a few locals — before heading back to the caravan.

The fuel station was the very last stop. It sits right round the corner from the caravan, and we'd ridden past it half a dozen times over the weekend, each time saying we'd come back for photos. Last evening, last of the light — it was now or never.

Monday was the bill for all of it — but we made the most of the start of it. We took the A44 right across mid-Wales, enjoying the last of the good stuff, over Fish Hill and down through the Cotswolds before the inevitable motorway slog the rest of the way home. Just under 900 miles all in by the time we were back, both bikes faultless, and two riders already arguing about where to go next.